Weaving Terms

Day 110: Several of my loyal and faithful readers have remarked to me recently that they feel like they're reading a foreign language when I'm talking about weaving. I find it odd that this didn't surface as I rambled on about fungi, slime molds, lichens or some rare plant I'd stumbled across in the backcountry, but there ya go: no accounting for how a writer's efforts are received by their audience, and I'm just happy to know that my work is being read. All things considered (not the least of which might be the paucity of bloggable material during isolation), I have decided that over the next several days, I will present a few weaving terms with explanatory photographs which hopefully will help folks follow along.

Let's start at the very beginning (a very good place to start, do-re-mi). If you look at a piece of woven cloth, you will see that it is comprised of threads running both vertically and horizontally. Turn it so that the selvedges (edges) are on your left and right. The threads which run lengthwise are the warp threads (left), and those running across are the weft (a patterned weft is shown top right). The warp threads are held taut by the loom, tied down on either end. Today, we'll just concern ourselves with the weft (the "active" thread controlled by the weaver's shuttle) and how it passes through the warp.

In order to make cloth, some sort of over-under pattern must be established. The simplest is tabby weave: one thread up, one down across the entire width of the cloth. The first looms were established to make this easier by raising or lowering every other thread simultaneously rather than picking them up one at a time by hand. On a floor loom, this is done by depressing a treadle which in turn operates a mechanical device in which that half of the threads are held. This device (harness and heddles) will be explained in a future post. When the alternate threads are raised or lowered and the developing cloth is viewed from the side, it will be seen that there is a triangular gap between the two layers of "up" and "down" threads. This is called the shed (lower right photo). Doesn't it remind you of a woodshed? See how the "roof" slopes down toward the front? The shuttle carrying the weaving thread (weft) is passed through the shed, and the "throw" is beaten into place. Then the weaver depresses a different treadle and the opposite threads are raised or lowered, forming the alternate shed. The shuttle goes through again, the thread is beaten into place, and the first two rows of cloth have been formed, interlaced over-and-under like weaving a basket. In the top right photo, the lavender threads are woven in that over-and-under (tabby) pattern. Indeed, much of the cloth on the market today as both yardage and finished goods is woven either as tabby or as twill (a sequence of four threads progressing on the diagonal), but as you can see in the dark blue pattern above, there are many other possibilities to be made by simply raising or lowering different threads. That's where heddles come in, and for that, you'll have to tune in tomorrow.

Rainbow Tablecloth - Sneak Peek

Day 176: The vision is coming to life! Yesterday, I wove one full colour sequence, fifteen throws of each of seven colours shading from red to purple. This sequence will repeat ten times for each half of the tablecloth, i.e., I will weave a total of twenty repeats broken into two panels of ten each. In other words, this will be the last weaving post you see from me for a while because there won't be anything different going on. For now, though, I'd like to explain a couple tricks of the trade I'm using during the process.

First of all, you may notice a white section in the photo on the left (it's less apparent in the photo on the right). This is the header. It will be turned under when the tablecloth is ready to hem. It helps space out the warp threads uniformly. A similar band will be added at the end of each panel. Second, that short white thread isn't something I dropped there accidentally. It gives me a handy reference point for measuring the colour band currently in progress. Because I am striving for a 50/50 weave, each weft stripe needs to be made with fifteen throws of the shuttle and to measure exactly one inch to match the warp measurements. At the end of each colour, I pull the white thread from the beginning of the stripe and reinsert it at the end. If I've beaten the weft irregularly, I may need to pick back several throws and re-do them, although minor spacing deviations will be unnoticeable once the fabric is fulled.

When weaving a twill, special care must be taken with the selvedges (the outer edges of the fabric web). It is all too easy to wind up with a "floating" warp thread which never gets caught into the weft. At the selvedges, the weaver must be sure that the weft goes under or over the outer thread in the manner of a tabby (plain) weave. As I have learned to do over the years, I've added an extra thread of black cotton carpet warp on each side to minimize draw-in, spaced one dent apart from the actual fabric. These threads pass through heddles numbered identically with the first and last threads of the cloth. To identify these two strands of carpet warp and their adjacent coloured threads, I've tied a small, loose loop of string around them. By taking up the loop with one hand, I can easily raise or lower the two selvedge threads together in a tabby pattern while throwing the shuttle with my opposite hand. The carpet warp thread will be carefully drawn out of the fabric when the weaving is completed. It all sounds very complicated, but in practice, it is fairly simple and not overly "fiddly." A rhythmic pattern emerges as the weaver works which, accompanied by the soft clatter of heddles and repetitive footwork on the treadles, is almost meditational. Weaving is an enormously satisfying craft.